Crazy question - update mobo, keep 2500k?

[The Sauce]

Is there any way for me to continue to use my perfectly good 2500k and just update the mobo to one that has some modern features such as M.2?

 

[LTC8K6]

I think you'd have to buy adapter cards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4M53SS6788

 

[BonzaiDuck]

This is a question I've been pondering, not because you can't do it, but because the Sandy Bridge only supports PCI-E 2.0 even in a motherboard that is PCI-E 3.0-ready. I'd have to look again, but I thought the throughput under 2.0 drops to half. If it IS half, then you'd expect a 3,200 MB/s 960 Pro to perform at roughly 1,600 MB/s. And I'm just guessing about that.

Someone could correct me about the particulars.

PCI-E is the only way you can fit an M.2 NVMe to an older motherboard. Some of the Z68 boards supported PCI-E 3.0 if you could use an Ivy Bridge processor in the board. It would make more sense to invest in a slower M.2 NVMe SSD for that purpose. So you might perhaps pair an expansion card (x4) with something like an Intel 600p drive.

YEs -- I see we have the same mobo -- the P8Z68-V Pro/Gen3. I think you need to turn off the USB 3.0 Asmedia controller in the BIOS to allow for the bottom "PCIE x16_3" to operate at a full x4 lanes. Or, if you don't mind the video card running at x8 and you don't have SLI, you could add it to the second PCIE slot and keep your USB 3.0.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Why bother? In real-world use SATA 6 GBs is fine and the price per GB is still lower for 2.5" SATA SSDs.

If performance matters that much to you, then don't you want the speed bump from a 6700K or 7700K too?

 

[The Sauce]

Good point. I guess that speed bump really isnt significant enough for me yet for my gaming purposes. I just was thinking that my next SSD should be nVME just for future-proofing, but maybe not necessary.

 

[Shmee]

A z77 board with an Ivybridge CPU would work with PCIE 3, and even NVMe with a bios mod, but at that point you may as well just get current generation CPU and mobo such as X99 and i7 hexcore, or kaby/skylake with a Z270 or Z170

 

[adamantine.me]

I was in a similar situation a few years ago, after going back and fourth on it I decided to just get a new mobo and CPU

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Why bother? In real-world use SATA 6 GBs is fine and the price per GB is still lower for 2.5" SATA SSDs.

If performance matters that much to you, then don't you want the speed bump from a 6700K or 7700K too?

SATA SSDs are getting pretty cheap. You could get 2x 250GB-ers and RAID0, choosing the two SATA-III Intel ports, and you can't RAID them on the Asmedia SATa-III ports. You could add an x4 PCIE 4-port Marvell controller offering simple RAID 0, 1 and 10. I could recommend one that may be priced currently between $60 and $80.

Or, you can do what I do and either use unused RAM of my 16GB to cache either a single SATA, several individually, or a RAID0 of two drives. You'd have to buy a caching program for that, and everybody knows what I'm using although there are handful of them available.

Because I've got NVMe on one system and 20GB = 2x8 + 2x2 RAM on the other, I don't use RAID mode, and my onboard Asmedia (2700K system) is either unused, or my PCIE Syba Marvell controller is used only for hot-swap and eSATA connections.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I upgraded a few years in a row now, basically to take better advantage of newer platform features, even though I stuck with entry-level CPUs.

I went with P35-DS3R boards, with Pentium dual-core (C2D) E2140 CPU, then upgraded to Q9300 CPUs.
Then I bought an AM2+ board with four PCI-E x16 slots for GPU crunching, and four 9600GSO cards.
Then I bought some various X48 boards, which I never really used.
Bought an AM3(+) board, an ASRock 990FX Extreme4, and a Thuban 1045T. Mostly because it had both SATA6G, and lots of PCI-E x16 slots, as well as PCI, and even IDE and floppy. I wanted a versatile "bridge" platform.
I did not invest in Sandy or Ivy Bridge.
When Haswell came around, and they had the (cheap!) H81 boards with G3258 combos for under $100, along with overclocking, I picked a few of those up. (Still buying those for budget "Facebook builds".)
Last year, bought some Skylake ASRock Z170 Pro4S boards, and Pentium G4400 dual-core CPUs, and BLCK OCed them past 4Ghz. FAST! for web browsing. Some of the best single-threaded speed on the market, at any price. Though somewhat hobbled for gaming, being only two cores and no HyperThreading.
A few months ago, I bought an i5-6400 (2.7Ghz stock, BLCK OCed in an ASRock B150 K4/Hyper board to 4.45Ghz), for gaming.
Picked up some 4K UHD TVs as monitors.
Most recently, picked up a Kaby Lake G4600 Pentium dual-core, WITH HyperThreading (that's new for Pentiums), for one of my ASRock DeskMini mini-STX PCs.

Thinking about selling my ATX overclocked gaming boxes. (Maybe.)

Using the DeskMini's more, connected to my HDMI2.0 4K screen using Club3D DP-to-HDMI2.0 adapters, so that I can run @ 4K60, rather than 4K30 off of the native HDMI1.4.

Pretty disappointed that Intel stuck with HDMI1.4 for Kaby Lake too, and didn't implement native HDMI2.0, but there could have been platform-compatibility issues there too, I suppose, since it was going into the same mobo as Skylake.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I upgraded a few years in a row now, basically to take better advantage of newer platform features, even though I stuck with entry-level CPUs.

I went with P35-DS3R boards, with Pentium dual-core (C2D) E2140 CPU, then upgraded to Q9300 CPUs.
Then I bought an AM2+ board with four PCI-E x16 slots for GPU crunching, and four 9600GSO cards.
Then I bought some various X48 boards, which I never really used.
Bought an AM3(+) board, an ASRock 990FX Extreme4, and a Thuban 1045T. Mostly because it had both SATA6G, and lots of PCI-E x16 slots, as well as PCI, and even IDE and floppy. I wanted a versatile "bridge" platform.
I did not invest in Sandy or Ivy Bridge.
When Haswell came around, and they had the (cheap!) H81 boards with G3258 combos for under $100, along with overclocking, I picked a few of those up. (Still buying those for budget "Facebook builds".)
Last year, bought some Skylake ASRock Z170 Pro4S boards, and Pentium G4400 dual-core CPUs, and BLCK OCed them past 4Ghz. FAST! for web browsing. Some of the best single-threaded speed on the market, at any price. Though somewhat hobbled for gaming, being only two cores and no HyperThreading.
A few months ago, I bought an i5-6400 (2.7Ghz stock, BLCK OCed in an ASRock B150 K4/Hyper board to 4.45Ghz), for gaming.
Picked up some 4K UHD TVs as monitors.
Most recently, picked up a Kaby Lake G4600 Pentium dual-core, WITH HyperThreading (that's new for Pentiums), for one of my ASRock DeskMini mini-STX PCs.

Thinking about selling my ATX overclocked gaming boxes. (Maybe.)

Using the DeskMini's more, connected to my HDMI2.0 4K screen using Club3D DP-to-HDMI2.0 adapters, so that I can run @ 4K60, rather than 4K30 off of the native HDMI1.4.

Pretty disappointed that Intel stuck with HDMI1.4 for Kaby Lake too, and didn't implement native HDMI2.0, but there could have been platform-compatibility issues there too, I suppose, since it was going into the same mobo as Skylake.

Larry, a little off topic -- but which version of HDMI allows configuration of monitors to a refresh rate above 60 Hz?

 

[StrangerGuy]

The so called modern features these days aren't compelling at all if you aren't a part of a niche userbase that actually benefits from them. Heck, those should apply the least if you are a just a gamer.

For example, if you are not doing any heavy productivity work M.2/NVMe really does nothing better over a regular SATA3 SSD outside of e-peen synthetic benchmarks.

BTW to think about it, I have never found any of the new-fangled interfaces like onboard RAID, SLI, PLX chip etc outside of the bog standard stuff particularly interesting either since I started this hobby in 2001.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The so called modern features these days aren't compelling at all if you aren't a part of a niche userbase that actually benefits from them. Heck, those should apply the least if you are a just a gamer.

For example, if you are not doing any heavy productivity work M.2/NVMe really does nothing better over a regular SATA3 SSD outside of e-peen synthetic benchmarks.

BTW to think about it, I have never found any of the new-fangled interfaces like onboard RAID, SLI, PLX chip etc outside of the bog standard stuff particularly interesting either since I started this hobby in 2001.

I "started" in 1983. I never overclocked or sought even second-tier graphics cards. It was for serious business -- consulting, teaching practice and other things. Running econometrics statistical software for grad-school data-analysis projects. If I built a system, I'd just get the parts I needed -- budget motherboard, bare RAM, inexpensive storage and heaven-forbid -- cheap PSU. A cheap case.

Somehow I developed this viral OCD enthusiast motivation, and I can't resist the "need for speed." But for what I'm attempting to do, the NVMe drive is going to shine. Now that I've sorted it all out, I don't have too many regrets. I could've waited until 960 Pros were as cheap as several cartons of Kool cigarettes. But then -- this "plan" I've implemented since last spring, executed with the initial parts purchase in early September, tweaked and fretted over, would be delayed.

NOW -- I can begin to put away my tools, disks, discs, circuit cards and other paraphernalia and clean up this room . . .